Social Sciences

Mosaic depictions of a weapon-wielding female gladiator are the first physical evidence showing women in ancient Rome could be skilled beast hunters

Door-building spiders; a new quantum liquid

Sometimes science does make our world turn upside down

Play this crossword inspired by the June 2026 issue of Scientific American

Science in meter and verse

Letters to the editors for the February 2026 issue of Scientific American

A massive digitization project has nearly doubled the known extent of the first continent-scale road network

Researchers discovered the copy of the 1,300-year-old poem lurking inside a historical text in an Italian library

Researchers who study political violence say that the U.S. is in a period of more intense political rhetoric, but there have been far darker periods in the nation’s history

Statistical principles show you don’t need a nefarious plot to explain clusters of missing scientists and lab workers

A new analysis shows that the Trump administration has terminated more than 100 advisory committees to science agencies—and reduced the transparency and independence of those that remain.

A draft bill would preserve NASA’s overall funding but downsize the National Science Foundation’s budget by 20 percent.